Normally, in this series I write about the music used for the end credits of an existing film. For today’s post, I created my own, featuring an ensemble cast and some familiar names among the film crew. For the exit music, I went with a suggestion provided by Popdose’s own theater critic Molly Marinik, the Rolling Stones song "You Can’t Always Get What You Want." It was the closing track of their 1969 album Let it Bleed, and I think it’s particularly fitting for two reasons. The first is that even though Hillary probably won’t get to be president in her lifetime, she will be able to influence the outcome of November’s election and help provide this country with what it needs - a Democratic president. The second is three words in the lyrics that capture the fundamental reason for my distaste for Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate: her bloodstained hands.
Cross-posted (with songs from soundtrack) at www.popdose.com
I always felt that with her extraordinary stature and visibility, Hillary could have done more than anyone to prevent the Iraq war from happening. Instead, she made a coldly cynical decision to hand the President a bat so he could head out back and give the hornet’s nest a few good whacks. In the end, her calculation was based not on heartfelt support for the war effort, but rather a sense that resisting the push of conventional wisdom and dime-store patriots would ultimately damage her ambitions in the future. She owns the war every bit as much as each the Senators who voted in favor of it, and her stubborn refusal to acknowledge that it was a disastrous decision is the same type of obstinacy that 77% of us have come to know and loathe about our current president.
In the end, though, I have a lot of sympathy for Hillary based simply on the way the press and the "village" of DC insiders sabotaged her candidacy. I suspect many of the voters in New Hampshire felt the same way. The soundtrack for my hypothetical film is meant to reflect that, and I hope that all of Hillary’s supporters that are threatening to throw their votes to McCain as some form of misguided protest will realize that the game is over, and Obama is not their opponent anymore.
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